Development in Burma!!!!! (r)

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| From:  <TMYINT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
| To: Recipients of burmanet-l  <burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx>
| Subject: Re: Development in Burma!!!!!
| Date: Tuesday, March 07, 1995 4:58AM
|
| From: Tun Myint <TMYINT@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
|
|
|
|         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|     	Arrested Development: Is the Opposition doomed to irrelevance?
| 	++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
|
| 	Her supporters like to see her as Burma's Mandela, a prisoner now but a
| premier or president some day. Certainly Aung San Suu Kyi is as popular among
| the Burmese as Nelson Mandela is among South Africa's black majority. 
And like
| him she's viewed internationally as the standard-bearer of her people's
| freedom.
| 	That hopeful analogy is starting to look hollow, however, in the light
| of recent events. Last year, Burma's ruling generals held talks with Suu Kyi
| and showed sign of a more liberal attitude towards the opposition. That led
| some Burma-watcher to suggest she might be freed in January. But instead, she
| was left under house arrest, and the junta resumed its hardline stance.
| 	At the same time, the Burmese army attacked the country's most
| troublesome ethnic rebels, the Karen National Union. The capture of the Karen
| headquarters at Manerplaw, on the Thai border, was another heavy blow 
to to the
| embattled and fragmented opposition.
| 	"Mandela had a massive active movement- ANC," says a Bangkok-based
| analyst, referring to the African National Congress. "Suu Kyi remains popular
| among the population at large, there is no doubt about that. But she doesn't
| have any *ORGANIZATION* to back her up."
| 	Indeed, in light of opposition's recent setbacks, analysts are
| questioning the future of Suu Kyi' democracy movement. And as the 
ruling junta
| - know as the State Law and Order Restoration Council- increasingly 
breaks out
| of its international isolation, some observers are asking whether the 
democracy
| movement has any *FUTURE* at all.
| 	The death on Feb 14 of Burma's only democratically elected prime
| minister, U Nu, provided sobering reminder of the staying power of 
the military
| overthrown in 1962, the 87-year-old U Nu had slipped so deep into obscurity
| that the state-controlled media didn't even feel it necessary to report his
| death.
| 	"SLORC holds power by means of the barrel of the gun, and for the
| people of Burma- as well as some abroad - this is very convincing argument to
| submit and to cooperate indaily life," says a Burma-watcher in Bangkok. "The
| government may be illegitimate and rejected by the people, but it is
| nevertheless there and running the country without seeming to be too much
| disturbed by moral or ethical consideration."
| 	Six years ago, massive street demonstrations rocked virtually every
| major city and town across Burma. The popular wave swept Suu Kyi, the 
daughter
| of independence hero Aung San, to the fore.
| 	The movement was crushed and Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest. But
| even so, her party, the National League for Democracy, won a 
landslide victory
| in May 1990 election run by the junta.
| 	The fact that the elected assembly was never convened caused ab outcry,
| and the international community was almost unanimous in its condemnation of
| Burma's ruling military. The United Nations passed resoultion demanding the
| release of Suu Kyi and urging the military to respect the outcome of the
| election.
| 	Today, however, what remains of the Suu Kyi's party inside the country
| has been cowed into submission. Almost the entire original wasn 
detained along
| with Suu Kyi in 1989, and most local party offices have been closed.. 
Like the
| Chinese democracy movement, its Burmese equivalent is beset by infighting and
| factionalism. It may be doomed to irrelevance.
| 	The Democratic Alliance for Burma- formed after the military crackdown
| by the democracy activists and the ethnic rebel group who sheltered 
them in the
| jungle - fell apart as the ethnic armies signed a string of ceasefire 
agreement
| with the junta. The Karen National Union, which lost its headquater in late
| January, was onw of the last rebel groups still fighting Rangoon.
| 	Burma democracy movement now exists almost entirely in exile. Some
| exiles are active: Harn Yawnghwe, the son of Burma's first president, 
Saw Ahwe
| Thaike, publishes a surprisingly non-partisn newsletter in Canada 
called Burma
| Alert.
| 	A new magazine in New York, Burma Debate sponsored by the Open Society
| Institute of the Soros Foundation, also contains articles expressing a rich
| variety  of viewpoints. And in far-away Oslo, some prodemocracy enthusiasts
| continue to make daily radio broadcasts in Burmese that are beamed across the
| globe to Burma.
| 	However, change in inside Burma - especially fledgling economic boom
| with substantial foreign investment - are affecting Asian as well as Western
| perceptions of the country. "Pro-democracy movement has been 
marginalized. It's
| been  obertaken by events inside the country." says a western diplomats in
| Rangoon.
| 	For foreign businesses, the most important of those events is the
| opening of resource-rich economy to the outside world. But Asian 
officials and
| analysts offer political explanations for the "constructive 
engagement" adopted
| by Asean over the past year.
| 	Though officially means to "encourage democratic developlment" in
| Burma, Asean's policy of "engaging"  the Rangoon generals is 
motivated more by
| fears about a growing Chinese influence, Asean officials say privately. China
| has taken advantage of Burma's isolation to expand its commercial, political
| and military influence into Southeast Asia, and "Asean wants to 
counter that,"
| one official says. According to this reasoning, this can be done only by
| increasing Asean investment in Burma - and making friend with ruling junta.
| 	A Rangoon-based diplomat suggests that Chinese Premier Li Peng's visit
| to Rangoon in December convinced the government that it has enough backing to
| stay in power without compromising with its opponents. "Since the visit, the
| Slorc has resumed the old hardline rhetoric. There is no more talk of Suu Kyi
| being 'our dear sister.' Now she is once again 'a foreigner who 
should go back
| to Britain.'
| 	Asian analysts says the troubles in nearby have also hurt the chances
| of Burma's democracy movement. A UN-run election there didn't deliver 
the kind
| of stability needed for economic development. "Obviously, an election is not
| enough to solve a country's ills. And after the Cambodian experienceno one
| wants another country to go the same way." says an analyst in Bangkok.
| 	Whatever the reasons, Rangoon is starting to appear increasingly
| confident about ingnoring Suu Kyi, just as it ignored U Nu. Despite 
his sature
| as an internationalfigure in 1950s, when he was a founder of the Non-Aligned
| Movement, U Nu's death went unreported by the state-controlled media.
| 	"The military can afford to ignore the death of U Nu. To them, he was
| just an irritant, a reminder of an old system which they don't want to have
| back," says a Rangoon-based diplomat.
| 	When the military overthrew U Nu in 1962, it inherited a country with
| one of the highest standard of living in Asia, a high litracy rate and a
| thriving middle class. It internationalized everything insight - meaning that
| economy was taken over by the military-run corporations - and closed of Burma
| to outside world.
| 	U Nu, who had remained in Burma, resurfaced during the 1988 democracy
| demonstrations, claiming to still be the legitimately elected premier. But he
| attracted a little notice from the majority of populace, who rallied 
around Suu
| Kyi.
| 	The disastrous effects of three decades of central economic planning
| have pushed the military to return Burma to market economies, the 
generals seem
| to see no need to make simultaneous political concessions.
| 	Most western government continue to condemn Rangoon for human rights
| abuses, but their protest carry less and less weight as neighouring countries
| mend fences with the generals. Time, which seemed to be running out for the
| generals a few years ago, seems to be switching sides. Unless the economic
| openning of the country truely does force reform, Suu Kyi and democracy
| movement might find themselves watching Burma's development from sidelines.
|
| 	****************** END *********************
| This article is from Far Eastern Economic Review on March 2, 1995, by Bertil
| Lintner.
| End/././././.
|
|
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